Discussion for The Necklace by Guy de Mauspassant

1. What were your initial thoughts of the Mathilde's personality?
2. The cliche goes that money can't buy you happiness. But at the ball, do you think money actually bought her happiness?
3. Do you think Mathilde and her husband foil each other? If so, how?
4. Why do you think Mathilde and her husband decided to not tell Jeanne Forestier about the losing the necklace?
5. What do you think the necklace represents? And why?

Discussion topics-
Morals of this story
The couple's relationship
How the ten years of paying off the necklace could've been avoided
Was fate to blame for the events

Recorder Kristin Good:
We thought that Mathilde's personality was greedy, and that the morals of the story is saying that the truth maybe be scary, but in the long run it pays off. We also said that the necklace represents greed, and the greed in the world because it shows how greed and dishonestly lead to all her problems. It also shows how the world is oppsessed with money, and we came to the conclution that the obbsession with money is the reason the world has problems. As shown in this story, she was unexcepting of her lifestyle, and she thought that the only way to be happy was to be rich. In our disscussion, we established that sometimes telling the truth is hard, and lieing seems much easier, lieing will always catch up with you. Overall, we did not like this story as much as we liked the other ones.